A vehicle door open operation apparatus in which a flap (design cover) covering an opening provided in a door panel is axially supported on a case mounted on the door panel so that the flap can be pushed in by means of the back of a finger of a vehicle user, and a handle lever (operating member) is housed within the opening so that the handle lever can be operated by being pushed up by means of the tip of the finger when the flap is open is known from Patent Document 1.
On the other hand, in a recent smart entry system, there is an arrangement in which user authentication is carried out when a detection switch detects a slight pulling operation of a door handle when a user is getting into a vehicle, in a state in which the legitimacy of the vehicle user has been authenticated a latch device is switched from a locked state to an unlocked state, and the latched state of the latch device is released by further pulling the door handle; the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 above can be applied to a smart entry system with the door handle as the operating member.